“Well, well,” Mark said. “Great-aunt Ida can’t save you from this one, now can she?”

“You can, Mark!”

“I might choose not to.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would. For the emotional blackmail you placed upon me that got you and your punk friend into this situation.” He had a point.

I said, “If you don’t come help us, I’ll call the police to get us out.”

“If you do that, the Post and News reporters will hear it on the police scanner. You’ll be a headliner a second time. Just as Mommy and Daddy arrive home to the newsstands at JFK. I’m going to take a guess here and presume that they and Grandpa think you’re spending the night at a girlfriend’s and not out with a fell a, and your cohorts Langston and Mrs. Basil E. are backing you up. This scandal gets out, and your folks will never leave you alone again. To say nothing of the fact that the media incident will ensure I lose my job. And, Lily? The worst part of all? Teenagers the world over will lose access to the secret stash of OEDs in the basement at the Strand, all because of you and your bookish lit le pervert friend’s reckless desire to peruse the volumes on New Year’s Eve. Can you live with that, Lily? Oh, the horror!” I paused before answering. Dash, who’d heard the conversation standing next to me, was laughing. That was a relief.

“I had no idea you were this evil, Mark.”

“Sure you did. Now Markypoo wants to nish his sleep. Because he’s such a sport, he’s going to get up at seven a.m. and come rescue you two from your lit le predicament. But not before the sun rises.”

I tried one last tactic. “Dash is get ing very frisky in here with me, Mark.” What I wanted to say was I wish Dash was get ing frisky in here with me.

Dash raised an eyebrow at me again.

“No he’s not,” Mark said.

“How do you know?”

“Because if he was, you wouldn’t be calling me to rescue you now, Googly Eyes. So here’s the deal. You wanted to get to know this fell ow.

Here’s your chance. You’ve got the night to yourselves. I’ll be there after my good night’s sleep. There’s a toilet in a closet in the corner at the back of the storage room if you can’t hold it. Might not be so clean. Probably no toilet paper.”

“I really hate you right now, Mark.”

“You can thank me in the morning, Lily bear.”

Dash and I did what any two teenagers stranded in the Strand would do alone together in a basement storage room.

We sat side by side on the cold floor and played hangman in the red notebook.

S-N-A-R-ll.

Q-U-I-E-S-C-E-N-T.

We talked. We laughed.

He made no untoward moves on me.

I thought about the bigger picture of my life, and about the people—and particularly the guys—I would encounter during my lifetime.

How would I ever know when that moment was right, when expectation met anticipation and formed … connection?

“Lily?” Dash said at two in the morning. “Do you mind if we go to sleep? Also, I sort of hate your cousin.”

“For imprisoning you here with me?”

“No, for imprisoning me here without any yogurt.”

Food!

I’d forgot en I had some lebkuchen spice cookies inside my purse, along with an obscene amount of Rice Krispie treats. I couldn’t eat another Rice Krispie treat or I’d surely turn into a human snap-crackle-pop, so I reached for the plastic bag of cookies.

As I fumbled inside my purse, I looked up once and saw that most dashing face just looking at me. In that certain way I knew had to mean something.

“You make really good cookies,” Dash said, in that Mmmm … donuts voice.

Should I wait for him to make a move, or dare to make it myself?

As if he were wondering the same thing, he leaned down. And there it was. Our lips nally met—in a full-on head bang that wasn’t anything close to a romantic kiss.

We both pulled back.

“Ouch,” we both said.

Pause.

Dash said, “Try again?”

It had never occurred to me the mat er would require conversation first. This lip-maneuvering business was complicated. Who knew?

“Yes, please?”

I closed my eyes and waited. And then I felt him. His mouth found mine, his lips grazing mine softly, playfully. Not knowing what to do, I mimicked his moves, exploring his lips with my own gently, happily. The honest-to-God smooching went on like that for a good minute.

There was no word in the dictionary adequate to describe the sensation other than sensational.

“More, please?” I asked him when we separated for air, our foreheads leaned in against one another.

“Can I be honest with you, Lily?”

Uh-oh. Here it was. All my hopes and fears about to be dashed by rejection. I was a bad kisser. Before I’d even got en a good start.

Dash said, “I’m seriously so tired I feel like I’m going to pass out. Could we please sleep on this, and resume tomorrow?”

“With great frequency?”

“Yes, please.”

I’d set le for one bang of a kiss followed by one sensational minute of kissing. For now.

I rested my head on his shoulder, and he rested his head on mine.

We fell asleep.

As threatened, my cousin Mark arrived after seven on New Year’s morning to rescue us. My head was still nestled on Dash’s shoulder when I heard Mark’s footsteps coming downstairs and saw a light burst on underneath the doorway.